Legislative panel wants Common Core stopped in NC

Republican lawmakers sound ready to separate North Carolina from the nationally-developed K-12 academic standards after complaints from parents, think tanks and other groups that Common Core requirements are controlling curriculum and classrooms.

A General Assembly study committee Thursday recommended colleagues pass a law directing the State Board of Education to replace the Common Core standards for math and language arts with something else, with input from a proposed standards commission. The alterations could cause conflict with GOP Gov. Pat McCrory and the North Carolina Chamber — both have praised Common Core.

More than 40 states have accepted the standards as their own, but some states are thinking twice now as critics say the standards are tying the hands of educators on how they teach and what they must teach.

"We have to have some standards. We've determined we need something other than Common Core," said Rep. Bryan Holloway, R-Stokes and a committee co-chairman.

The state board in 2010 approved Common Core, which was developed by the National Governors Association and state education superintendents to detail what students should be able to accomplish at every grade level. The idea is to bring state-to-state consistency in what students learn with higher standards. North Carolina used Common Core for the first time in the 2012-13 school year.

Common Core has struck a chord largely among conservative activists who consider its acceptance tantamount to giving up local control. Speakers at a public hearing last month overwhelmingly opposed the standards, often pointing to optional curriculum recommendations, such as for books, they said were inappropriate for young people.

The federal government has not required Common Core, but states approving it had a better chance to obtain federal Race to the Top Grants.

"I care about protecting North Carolina's sovereignty and the people are not led down a path that the federal government wants to take us," said Glenn Fink of New Bern and a leader of the Coastal Carolina Taxpayers Association.

The draft legislation, which would still need House and Senate approval and clear Gov. Pat McCrory's desk for passage, would direct the State Board of Education to halt further implementation of Common Core as of July 1. The legislature reconvenes May 14.

A 17-member Academic Standards Review Commission would present its recommendations by spring 2016. The current Common Core standards would be used in the meantime, but the bill would allow the commission to make short-term findings earlier so the State Board of Education could make changes.

Some committee members worried interim findings would only confuse educators and parents even more after three years of preparation for Common Core. Former school administrator Rep. Tricia Cotham, D-Mecklenburg, also said the changes would politicize the standards.

"This is a bad way to do policy," said Sen. Earline Parmon, D-Forsyth. "I think what we're doing here today is wrong."

The State Board of Education passed the standards when Democratic governors picked most of its membership and the party controlled the Legislature. Now Republicans have the upper hand in both.

McCrory education adviser Eric Guckian said the governor is a strong supporter of high standards.

"We welcome the opportunity to improve upon these standards, but any attempt to lower them is not an acceptable option," Guckian said.

Superintendent of Public Instruction June Atkinson, a Democrat, questioned whether refining the standards would be any better than Common Core. She said North Carolina already has spent $22 million on preparing teachers for it.

"It is unnecessary to put uncertainty on the backs of teachers when there are already many challenges that our teachers would face," Atkinson said in an interview.

Andrea Dillon of Holly Springs, the mother of a first-grader in the public schools and critical of Common Core, praised the committee's decision. "I think it's a great first step," Dillon said, but "the fight is yet to come."